


To Turn Back or to Follow

by borealowl



Series: Four Cups of Wine and related stories [7]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Found Family, Jewish Good Omens (Good Omens), M/M, Midrash, Shavuot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-05
Updated: 2020-06-05
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:40:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24562525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/borealowl/pseuds/borealowl
Summary: “Cheesecake and staying up all night reading religious texts?” says Crowley, looking at Aziraphale. “What, did you design this holiday when I wasn’t paying attention?”Crowley has feelings about Shavuot and free will. There's also a midrash retelling. And a tortoise.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: Four Cups of Wine and related stories [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1605910
Comments: 78
Kudos: 256





	To Turn Back or to Follow

**Author's Note:**

> I kinda regretted having to downplay Shavuot (for plot and pacing reasons) in the original story, so I wrote this. 
> 
> [Explanatory notes have now been added!](https://archiveofourown.org/comments/312828544)
> 
> This is mostly set soon after the main chapter of Four Cups, when Miriam is still a baby.

“Shavuot?” Aziraphale asks. “Did we celebrate that last year?”

“Nope!” says Naomi cheerfully. “Well, sort of. That’s when I visited you in London, and we went to Eli’s party.”

She talks softly, trying to avoid waking the baby in the next room. Miriam is fairly quiet for a five month-old, but she sometimes has days where she’s fussy and restless, and today it took some time to get her to fall asleep. Crowley had been tempted to use a miracle to do it, but he’s not sure what effect that would have on a developing human brain.

“Oh, yes, of course! I could never forget that cheesecake.”

“Why do you even have a holiday about cheesecake?” asks Crowley.

“ _I_ think cheesecake is worth a holiday,” says Aziraphale. “And there were also blintzes.”

“I’m just saying, it’s not much of a holiday.”

“It’s actually one of the three major festivals,” says Yael, though she sounds more amused than reproving. “Along with Pesach and Sukkot. And it isn’t just about cheesecake.”

“Sure,” says Crowley. “There were also blintzes.”

She rolls her eyes at him. “It celebrates receiving the Torah. That’s fairly important.”

“I’ll be honest,” says Naomi. “It’s not one I get that excited about. I mean, yes, Torah is important, but there’s just not a lot to _do_ on Shavuot. Other than stay up all night studying Torah, and I’m too old for that these days.”

“Cheesecake _and_ staying up all night reading religious texts?” says Crowley, looking at Aziraphale. “What, did you design this holiday when I wasn’t paying attention?”

“No, but I was th—I mean, I did, I was, well, you know.” Aziraphale ends this garbled speech with an exasperated glare at Crowley for putting him in this position.

Crowley grins at the angel’s irritation, which dissipates instantly when Crowley wraps an arm around his shoulders and kisses his cheek.

“It was a _joke_ , angel,” he whispers.

There’s a wail from the living room, and all the adults turn, but Crowley is the first one to reach the crib and scoop Miriam up. It doesn’t take a demon’s powers or snake’s enhanced sense of smell to tell why she’s upset. “She just needs changing!” he calls into the other room. A snap of his fingers, and her diaper is clean and dry. Miriam giggles. Crowley gets the sense that she likes it when he or Aziraphale use miracles to clean her up.

“Now, be a good tiny human and go back to sleep.” He sets her back down in her crib and waits until her eyes start to close.

When he gets back to the kitchen, they’re still discussing the holiday.

“And that’s the other reason Shavuot isn’t my favorite,” Naomi is saying. “My entire family is lactose intolerant. You don’t want to be in a room with us after we’ve all eaten dairy.”

“It is a bit harrowing,” says Yael with a sigh. “I’m lucky to be one of the twenty-five percent of Jews who _can_ break down lactose.”

“Wait,” says Crowley, “Three quarters of your religion can’t digest milk, and you have a holiday where you eat a bunch of dairy? _Why_?”

“Judaism is all about contradictions,” says Yael.

“In other words, you have no idea.”

Fortunately, it’s hard to offend Yael, even when Crowley is trying to annoy her.

“There are stories, but I don’t find them particularly convincing. There’s the story that the Israelites couldn’t cook meat right after receiving the Torah, because they hadn’t yet kashered their cookware. So they ate uncooked dairy instead. But that hardly seems like a reason to celebrate. I prefer the explanation that the Torah is compared to milk and honey, so we have sweetened milk dishes. But that doesn’t necessarily explain where the tradition started.”

“I mean, it’s also an excuse to eat a bunch of delicious foods that you can’t eat at most holidays if you keep kosher,” says Naomi. “And a really good cheese blintz is worth the suffering that follows.” She gets that odd smile of hers. “Not that I’ve had any trouble with lactose for the past year. When my morning sickness went away, so did my lactose intolerance. It was like my own personal Shavuot miracle.”

Aziraphale gazes out the kitchen window, refusing to meet anyone’s eyes.

Before Crowley can think of some way to tease him without giving anything away, there’s another wail from the living room. Crowley is once again the first to respond. This time, he returns almost immediately, carrying the baby.

“I don’t think she wants to sleep right now,” he explains. “She wants company.” Her tiny human mind is very emphatic about her desires. First: to be in the room with Aziraphale, Crowley, and her mothers. Once that is achieved, she is free to focus on her second goal, which is to pull Crowley’s glasses off his face and stick them in her mouth. Fortunately, Crowley is well-prepared for this event and has already miracled up a replacement pair.

“You really don’t have to let her do that,” Naomi says.

“Eh, it’s fine. I just cleaned them.” Crowley always makes sure that everything Miriam sticks in her mouth is pre-sterilized.

“No, I meant, you don’t have to just give her your glasses to chew on, if you don’t want to.”

“Ehhhhhh.” He shrugs. Naomi’s probably right that it sets a bad precedent, giving the baby whatever she wants, but it’s such an easy way to make her happy. Come to think of it, he does the same thing with Aziraphale. And even Naomi and Yael, if they aren’t paying attention. Satan, there’s a thought—what sort of demon just goes around making people happy? Once again, Crowley is glad that he’s been permanently cut loose from Hell and doesn’t have to worry about being a proper demon. Though if he were still employed, he could point out that spoiling the baby is probably bad for her moral character or something.

(And he’s always been willing to disregard demonic standards in an unnecessary heartbeat if it will make Aziraphale smile at him.)

Crowley realizes that while he’s been rationalizing his behavior, Aziraphale had asked Yael why she likes Shavuot.

“As I said before, it’s about more than cheesecake. It’s about revelation, and acceptance, and choice. Receiving the Torah and making our covenant. God choosing the people of Israel and Israel choosing to accept God. And not just at Sinai, but over and over again.”

Crowley snorts.

“Yes, Crowley, I know that’s not really your thing. But, unlike Naomi, I didn’t grow up celebrating Shavuot or studying Torah or going to the temple. My family was pretty secular—Pesach and Chanukah and that’s about it. The Judaism that I live now is very much a conscious choice for me, about my values and how I want to live my life. I choose to accept the Torah, and I choose to accept the mitzvot, again and again. It’s not a one-time thing.”

“It’s like a marriage,” says Naomi. “Even if you have the one big ceremony, to keep it functional you both need to keep choosing the other.” She takes Yael’s hand and they smile at each other. Crowley looks away, behind his glasses.

“And if you can’t choose God?”

“Hmm,” says Yael. “There are a lot of different approaches to Shavuot from a non-believing perspective. You can see it as an agricultural festival, which is what it originally was—the connection to Torah came later. But even focusing on the core themes, there are different ways to approach it. It’s a time to celebrate Jews by choice—converts—because we read Megillat Ruth for the holiday, and it’s a good time for us to reflect on what it means to be Jewish. For some people, the mitzvot are important because they believe in Jewish values, even if they don’t believe in God. And others focus on being part of the long Jewish tradition—it’s a way to feel connected to all those who came before us and those who will follow.”

“Some people see the mitzvot and halakha as a way to add structure and self-restraint to their lives,” adds Naomi. “And it’s a good time to think about that as well. It’s not that important a holiday to me personally, but I do get why it is for others. Plus, there is the cheesecake.”

“Yeah, sure, that’s great, but that’s people rejecting God,” Crowley says. “What if it’s God doing the rejecting? You said it was like a marriage, so, what if God wants a divorce?”

Yael smiles. “There’s lots of examples of God losing His temper with us. Usually we have prophets to talk Him down.”

Crowley winces, remembering some of the times the prophets weren’t able to talk Her down. “I was thinking more on a personal level.”

“Something like that happened with King Saul, but I wouldn’t recommend him as an example.”

“Ugh, no.” Crowley never liked Saul. He’d tried to tempt the man to spare the Amalekite women and children—hey, it was directly against God’s orders, that’s evil, right?—but instead the man had taken the suggestion and decided to kill the weak and spare the king of Amalek, utterly missing the point. Crowley hadn’t stayed around for the slaughter, even though he knew Aziraphale would have to. Looking at the angel’s face now, Crowley can tell he’s remembering the same events.

“I guess there’s Adam and Eve? They were cast out of the garden…” Naomi trails off.

“True, though there’s a difference between that and being totally cut off from God. And of course they predate the giving of the Torah, so it’s kind of a different dynamic.” Yael looks at Crowley. “I’m sorry, this isn’t answering your question, is it?”

Crowley is frustrated, but he doesn’t know how to explain it. Well, he does know, but he doesn’t think ‘Yes, but I’m a fallen angel, where would I fit in?’ would go over well. And even if they did believe him and not immediately panic about having a demon in their kitchen, probably they’d be so distracted with that revelation that they wouldn’t get around to answering his question. 

Miriam provides a convenient distraction by attempting to eat his hair. He offers her a spoon instead, and she immediately drops it to the floor.

“Mind if I take her for a walk? It’s nice weather out.”

Yael smiles. “That would be great. Then I can make dinner and Naomi can finish grading her papers.”

“Actually, I was hoping Zira could help me with this translation. I don’t think I’m quite getting the nuance across. Are you up for it? It’s the one I was showing you before.”

“I’d be delighted to help! Unless you want company on your walk, dearest.”

Crowley lightly bounces Miriam, to her obvious delight, as she waves and smiles. “I have company. You go stare at books.”

The park is only a few blocks away, and is as full of people as always, but somehow the bench Crowley wants just happens to be unoccupied. He sits and watches the humans—rollerbladers, parents, the young and old couples, and a woman trying to gently herd a tortoise off the main path with a stick. Miriam looks all around her—the sky, the trees, the people, the ducks, even the pigeons. She’s only had five months on earth, most of them without object permanence, and clearly the world hasn’t lost its novelty yet. Crowley’s had over six thousand years here, and it hasn’t lost all its novelty for him either.

“I’ll give Her credit for that,” he informs the baby. “She did a good job with this place. Especially you humans. Though really, I think you deserve most of the credit on your own. Well, not you specifically. You’re just getting started. But people in general.”

He does like humans. It’s a failing in a demon, but still, he likes them. And right now he’s frustrated because two of the humans he likes most have accidentally reminded him that being a failed demon doesn’t make him any less a demon. It’s not even that he minds being a demon! He doesn’t want to be mortal and he wouldn’t go back to being an angel again even if they invited him back. But the humans don’t even realize how many options they have, or what it would mean to lose them.

The tortoise has stopped in the middle of the road and refuses to budge until the woman pushes it forward with the stick. It takes a few reluctant steps, then stops again.

Crowley wonders if Yael and Naomi would be able to answer his question if they knew he was a demon. He doesn’t think so. Even if he _can_ make choices (and he’s still not one hundred percent sure that free will applies to him), the choice Yael is talking about is the one that’s permanently off limits to Crowley. It wouldn’t matter if he _did_ accept God (and he wouldn’t), God will never accept him again. He hadn’t even realized he was making a choice until it was made for him, and the consequences became clear, and he could never take it back. The humans and Aziraphale might understand it in the abstract, if Crowley explained it to them, but experiencing it is different.

“And I don’t want you to experience it,” he says to Miriam, who is making another play for his glasses. “I want you to have your stupid cheesecake holiday and stay up all night talking about books. Once you’re old enough to read, anyway.” Right now the only books she can be trusted with are soft and plastic, hard to tear and easy to wipe clean.

He hears a sigh and turns his head toward the path. The tortoise has somehow managed to turn itself 90°, and no amount of prodding seems to be having an effect. The woman looks up and sees Crowley watching. “I don’t want to just leave him here,” she says. “There are joggers and cyclists and sometimes the park maintenance vehicles drive down this path. He could get run over.”

Crowley tries to think of a way to help. He makes eye contact with the tortoise and tries to exert a little temptation, one reptile to another. He’s never been the sort of demon to place thoughts directly in anyone’s mind—that’s for amateurs, and it’s no fun besides—but he does drop a little suggestion that a voluntary relocation might be rewarded with lettuce. The tortoise glares back at him, making it clear that if it could talk, its response would be in words inappropriate to utter in front of the baby. Apparently there’s no solidarity between reptiles.

The woman is still speaking. “I would just pick him up, but I’m worried he’ll bite me. If I had a pair of thick gloves I’d do it, but…”

Oh, that’s easy. He says “catch!” and tosses the woman a pair of heavy gardening gloves. They’re thick and stuff, the kind someone might wear to prune roses if he couldn’t just threaten the thorns right off them.

“Oh! Uh, thank you.” He watches her pick the tortoise up and place it a ways off the path. The tortoise glares at Crowley as it’s carried, and he smirks back. _Should’ve taken the lettuce._

The woman sits down on the bench. “That’s my good deed for the day. Thank you again—good thing you had those gloves.” She looks him over, in his extremely stylish human clothes. “Why do you have those gloves with you? Were you going to do some gardening here in the park?”

He casts around for an explanation, then holds up Miriam and says the first thing that comes to mind. “Protective gear. In case she attacks. She’s very fierce.”

The woman laughs. “Yes, those are some very intimidating gums. Is she yours?”

“What, worried I kidnapped her?”

“No! It’s just, you don’t see that many dads with their babies, even in a progressive neighborhood like this.” She waves her hand at the park. “Actually, here it’s mostly au pairs and nannies. Sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you.”

“Nah, it’s fine.” He leaves it there for a moment, just long enough that she’s likely to start wondering if he _had_ kidnapped the baby, before saying, “I’m her uncle, actually.”

“Oh, that’s nice of you, to give her parents a little break.” She stands up. “Well, if I want to get any writing done today I should probably head off to the coffee shop. Have you been to the place across the street? My partner works there—it’s a lot better than the hipster vibe would suggest.”

“Oh yeah, we go there all the time.”

“You and the baby?”

“No, me and my, er.” What is Aziraphale, anyway? He doesn’t think that “hereditary enemy that somehow actually does return the feelings I tried to hide for over six thousand years” is going to make much sense to this human. “My someone. My _important_ someone.”

“Aww, that’s a sweet way of putting it. Well, maybe I’ll see you two there sometime. Oh! I’m Anna, by the way.”

“Crowley.” Anna is looking expectantly at the baby, so he adds “and Miriam.”

“Nice to meet you both!” As she walks away, Crowley realizes that she’s still holding the gloves, conveniently saving him the trouble of figuring out what to do with them. Plus, she’ll notice she has them sooner or later, so he can have the satisfaction of adding just a tiny bit of extra confusion to the world.

“That was odd,” he tells Miriam, who is tugging on a loose bit of his hair. Normally humans aren’t quite that relaxed around him. Miriam is, because she doesn’t know any better, and Naomi and Yael are, at least these days. But most other people always seem a little nervous around him, probably because they’re picking up on some demonic aura subconsciously. It’s possible that it’s something he’s doing, making some little mistake that tips people off to the fact that he isn’t a normal human, but Crowley is pretty sure that isn’t the case. He’s been pretending to be human for almost six thousand years, and unlike Aziraphale, he actually keeps up with changes in language and fashion. His human disguise is _excellent_.

But that’s part of his current dilemma. If he could just tell Naomi and Yael that he’s a demon, then they could avoid misunderstandings like the one that’s got him sitting here in the park, definitely not sulking.

It’s hard, knowing humans. He’s frustrated and hurt, and they want to help and can’t. Maybe he should just leave. Go straight home—well, drop off the baby first— stop talking to Yael and Naomi, stop visiting them with Aziraphale. If he doesn’t ever see them again, he doesn’t have to deal with their feelings. He’ll still have to deal with Aziraphale’s feelings, but maybe he can avoid that too. He could leave a note: _Off somewhere else, be back in a century, don’t come looking_. Of course, then Crowley would be bored and lonely without Aziraphale, but he could spend that time asleep. But then Aziraphale would worry, and might even come looking for him, so Crowley would have to hide somewhere sufficiently far away. Alpha Centauri is too obvious, but maybe Aldebaran would work.

This is starting to seem like a lot of effort for something he doesn’t actually want to do. But he could, if he wanted. He probably does have free will, if he’s being honest with himself (always a bad idea, that), and that means that he could always choose to leave.

It also means that if he stays, it’s his choice. What an exhausting thought.

Crowley liked free will better when it was an abstract human thing. Now it means he’s responsible for people and their feelings. It feels almost like a punishment, but Hell would never be able to think up something like that. Heaven couldn’t either.

Miriam is once again using _her_ free will to try and eat his hair, so he extracts the strands from her grasp before they can be saturated in baby spit. He should probably take her home before anyone starts to worry. He can always decide whether or not to go off to the stars later.

When they get back, Naomi is halfway through telling Aziraphale about something that has her excitedly waving her hands around while Aziraphale looks like he can’t decide whether to laugh or be appalled.

Crowley sets Miriam down in her crib, and sits on the sofa next to Aziraphale. He leans again the angel, feeling some of the tension drain out of his body as Aziraphale puts an arm around him and pulls him closer. “Are you all right?” he asks Aziraphale.

“Oh yes. Naomi was just telling me about a midrash she read. It’s quite…something.”

Naomi grins. “Do you want to hear it too? It _is_ about receiving the Torah, so if you don’t want to hear about that right now, I can finish the story later. Or, if you do want to hear it, I can start over.”

“Nah, just keep going.” He wants to see what put that expression on Aziraphale’s face.

“Okay! The basic story is that Moses actually had to go up to Heaven to physically retrieve the Torah. And the angels, who never really liked humans anyway—they thought we were unnecessary, since God already had angels—keep trying to stop him.”

Crowley leans forward a bit. “And then?”

“Okay, so we were on Angel Number Three—I think, it’s been a while since I actually read this—who is named Sandalphon. And he’s huge—the tallest of the angels—and surrounded by fire. And Hadraniel, the one who’s been following Moses around like a student, he’s like, ‘Nope, this guy is too scary, I don’t want to get burned up.’ And Sandalphon’s really intent on destroying Moses and doesn’t seem to care that Moses has a hall pass from God.”

“He wouldn’t,” Aziraphale murmurs under his breath.

“So Moses gets down off his cloud—”

“Cloud?”

“Yeah, that was earlier in the story—he’s been riding on a flying cloud this whole time. Anyway, he gets off his cloud and approaches Sandalphon, and he’s crying from all the fire, and God Himself comes down and stations himself in front of Moses and protects him from the flames. There’s some more trials that Moses has to pass through, I think, but I don’t remember them all. But anyway, eventually he makes it to where the Torah is kept, and all the angels are still protesting, and the Angels of Terror, the most powerful ones of all, they all want to burn him up too.”

“They sound like a fun bunch,” Crowley remarks. He remembers them. They weren’t.

“Well, the angels really don’t want to give up the Torah. They don’t think humanity deserves it. Like I said, they really dislike humans.”

“Surely not _all_ angels hate humanity,” says Aziraphale.

“There’s got to be at least one out there who doesn’t,” Crowley adds. He’s not sure there’s more than one, but that’s the only angel he cares about anyway.

“Yeah, of course, this is just one story. And even in this story there’s Hadraniel. But anyway, the Angels of Terror definitely don’t like humans and aren’t willing to give up the Torah until God tell Moses to explain why he should have it.”

“And he says, ‘because God said so, and She could just toss you into Hell for saying no’?” Crowley can hear the edge in his own voice, and hopes Naomi can’t.

“Hah, no, that wouldn’t be Jewish at all. Moses presents a properly logical legal argument for why the Torah was made for people. He goes through the various commandments, pointing out how they don’t apply to angels. Like, ‘What father and mother are you supposed to be honoring?’ and ‘it says right here _I am the Lord your God who brought you out of bondage in Egypt_ , but since when were you guys enslaved in Egypt?’ And ‘are angels really going around attacking each other such that you need to be told not to murder?’ And so on.”

Aziraphale stiffens, hearing that last one. Crowley squeezes his hand.

Naomi continues, too engrossed in her tale to notice. “And the angels were properly impressed with Moses’ argument, so they have to concede and let him take the Torah back to earth. And that’s why we have it, according to this midrash.” She grins. “Isn’t that a great story?”

“It’s very…” Aziraphale trails off.

“Naomi seems somewhat disappointed in their reactions—or lack thereof—but that’s when Yael comes to tell them that dinner is ready.

He and Aziraphale talk about it later that evening.

“So how much of that was actually true?” Crowley asks.

“I know that he did go Upstairs, but I don’t know all the details, since I was stationed on Earth at the time. The part about Sandalphon sounds accurate enough, except for his height. And I know some of it is true—Hadraniel really did see themself as a sort of student of Moses after that, and they used to drop by quite frequently to chat with him.”

“Good thing I wasn’t in the area much.”

“Yes, I was always very worried that you would show up at the same time. Not that we had an Arrangement at that point, but even back then I would have been quite upset if they smote you. Our encounters may have been infrequent, but they were still something I looked forward to.”

Crowley has to kiss him then, thinking of his angel fretting and refusing to admit why.

“Always knew you liked me.”

“Yes, well. Oh!” He brightens. “The part about Moses knocking Kemu’el out with a single punch is also true! At least, I heard the same story from Hadraniel.”

Crowley sits up straight. “He _what_?”

“Oh yes, that was the first part of the story. Kemu’el was guarding the gate and wouldn’t let him in, so Moses ‘planted a facer,’ as they say.”

“They stopped saying that centuries ago.”

Aziraphale sighs. “Slang changes so quickly.”

“Angel, it was two centuries ago.”

“Precisely.”

Crowley makes a face. Of all the ridiculous beings to fall in love with.

“Speaking of human terms,” Aziraphale says, “Naomi asked me today how she should refer to us. As a unit, I mean. Or, in her words, as “boyfriends or partners or what?’”

“Huh. Been wondering that myself, actually.” Boyfriends sounds silly to Crowley, and partners makes it sound like they’re still just operating under the Arrangement.

“Personally, I’m rather fond of ‘husband,’ unless you object,” says Aziraphale

“It’s shorter than ‘hereditary enemies,’ anyway.”

“I’m trying to ask a serious question.”

Crowley twists around so he can look Aziraphale in the eyes. “It hasn’t even been two years since you said we weren’t even friends.”

Aziraphale looks stricken. “I know, and I’m sorry.” He bites his lip. “I love you, and I would like to make that clear to everyone, and that seemed like the best term to convey the nature of what I hope will be a permanent new Arrangement.”

“Permanent, huh? What if you want a divorce later?”

“You’re the one who likes change, Crowley. You’re far more likely to grow tired of me than the other way around.”

“Ss’been six thousand yearss and I haven’t yet.” It’s still a little embarrassing to admit, but he manages to get the words out.

“Neither have I, dearest.”

Their attention turns to other things for a little while, until Crowley pulls back for a moment to ask, “Does this mean we have to do paperwork or have some human ceremony?”

“I don’t think it’s necessary, do you?” Aziraphale smiles. “Though if we ever do want a celebration, I’m sure Naomi would be delighted to arrange it.”

Crowley is still annoyed about this holiday, but he decides not to return to London and avoid it. The next morning, he resigns himself to the knowledge that he’s going to be coming back to this city and this house and this family for years to come. The baby—who has finally managed to stuff an entire fistful of his hair into her mouth and now appears to be regretting her decision—is going to get bigger and learn to talk and turn into an adult human, and he’ll be there to see it.

He stays for Shavuot. He even helps Naomi prepare blintzes for dinner that night, and proudly announces that one—but only one—of the blintzes has been spiked with the hottest cayenne pepper he could find.

“Who feels lucky?” he asks with his best snakey grin.

Naomi thinks for a moment, then points out that cayenne pepper is red, and the cheese filling is white. She and Yael start cutting open the blintzes, stopping when the the third one has a distinct pink tinge.

“But don’t be too disappointed, Crowley,” Naomi says. “Next year I’ll also make some cherry blintzes, and you can sneak chili powder into one of those instead.”

Crowley doesn’t stay up all night, and of course he isn’t going to accompany them to the synagogue, either for the all-night study session or the reading of the Scroll of Ruth. (He doesn’t need to hear the scroll read, anyway. He’d heard the firsthand over dinner with Boaz and his family). But he does offer to stay and babysit so that the other three can all go without worrying about Miriam.

“You’re an angel,” Naomi tells him, then grins at his startled laugh. “Obviously not one of the ones from the midrash.”

“Not my scene,” he says.

Even sleeping in, he still wakes up earlier than Naomi or Yael. He and Aziraphale take a walk together, stopping in at the cafe. “Hey, it’s the tortoise woman!” says Crowley, rudely pointing.

Aziraphale walks over to her table. “Hello, Anna!” 

“Zira! How’s it going?”

Crowley looks at the two of them. “You know each other?”

“Yes, Anna’s fiancé is a barista and baker here. The turnovers and orange sweet rolls are made by him.”

“I remember you!” says Anna. “The guy with the gloves. Wait, you know Zira?”

Aziraphale takes him hand. “Crowley is my husband,” he says, looking remarkably smug.

*****

Shavuot will never be Crowley’s favorite holiday—he prefers the ones with more wine involved—but he and Aziraphale still come every year. He doesn’t have to, so he does. Naomi teaches him to make cherry blintzes, and a few years later, they both teach Miriam. Finding the lucky blintz becomes a family tradition—the winner gets to pick breakfast the following morning. (They also get a glass of milk or soda, especially after Crowley upgrades from cayenne to ghost peppers.)

It takes thirteen years for Crowley to return to the unresolved argument. He’s been thinking about it on and off the entire time, but it’s not worth bringing up until Yael and Naomi know what he actually is. And after that he waits until Shavuot.

“Remember when you first told me about this holiday?” he asks Yael.

She tilts her head and looks up in thought. “Vaguely…I remember that you were upset and I couldn’t quite understand why.” He watches her face as the realization dawns. “Oh. Oh, of course. Oh, Crowley. I’m sorry.”

He shrugs.

Yael continues, “It’s not fair, and I’m angry on your behalf.”

“You know, Naomi’s story helped a little,” he says. “The one with Moses on the cloud.”

“Oh?”

“I knew them—Kemu’el, Sandalphon, the whole lot. They must have hated losing to a human. That’s worth a holiday.”

She laughs. “I’m glad you’ve gotten something out of it, at least. To be honest, I still don’t have a good answer for you, even with the context.”

“Yeah?”

She’s quiet for a moment. “You know, it goes both ways.”

“What?”

“Covenants, marriages, any time we choose to share our lives with each other. Both sides have to accept it.”

He stares at her, but she’s never been intimidated by his eyes.

“I know you’re not quite convinced yet that we accept you and love you for who you are. And that’s fine. But every time you try to convince us to push you away, you’re giving us another chance to prove that we won’t do it.”

That’s an uncomfortably accurate observation of his behavior, so he mumbles something about it being almost dinner time and slips into the kitchen to choose the lucky blintz.

Crowley doesn’t have to stay. It’s not like he doesn’t have options. Heaven and Hell are closed to him, but he could always go off to another solar system, or even another galaxy. It’s just that Aziraphale is happy here, and he likes making Aziraphale happy. And he likes this family, and humans, and this endlessly interesting world that he helped save. He’ll do that again, if he has to. Some things are worth choosing again and again. 

**Author's Note:**

> "Wasn't Shavuot _last_ week?" you might ask. Yes, but I lost track of time. "But weren't you counting the Omer every day? Counting up to the day of Shavuot?" Again, yes. But there was a lot going on those last two weeks. So, here it is, a week late. Hopefully you will enjoy it anyway. 
> 
> Other notes: Title is based on Ruth's speech to Naomi (the original one). I have so many feelings about Ruth and Naomi. 
> 
> And yes, that is a [real midrash](https://www.sefaria.org/Psalms.146.10?lang=bi&p2=Otzar_Midrashim%2C_Maayan_HaChochmah%2C_Maayan_HaChochmah_\(Version_1\)&lang2=bi). (Scroll down a bit for the English.) 
> 
> Anyway, I hope you are all safe and well. <3


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